Interview
What tier verification actually checks, and why it happens before scoring
A student ranked against agencies is not a competition. Admin walks through the paperwork.
2 min read
Interview · July 9, 2026
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A student ranked against agencies is not a competition. Admin walks through the paperwork.
What the criteria actually measure
Every group is scored against the same four criteria: the problem the work was given, the idea it answered with, how well that idea was made, and what happened once it left the studio. A juror cannot substitute a fifth criterion of their own, and cannot score a piece on a criterion its category does not carry.
The scores are recorded per criterion rather than as a single impression, which is what makes a result explainable afterwards. When two entries finish level, the tiebreak reads the criteria in a fixed order before it reads anything else.
Why the tier is settled first
A student ranked against an agency is not a competition, so the tier a piece competes in is verified before any juror sees it. Verification looks at the entrant, not the work: enrolment, trade licence, the size of the studio that made it.
It happens before scoring for a plain reason: moving an entry after a jury has read it would either discard their work or carry a score across a boundary it was never given for.
About this conversation
The conversation was recorded for the programme and edited for length. The full transcript is above the related posts, so nothing said here depends on being able to play the film.
Transcript
The film is edited for length. This is what was said.
On the question this answers
A student ranked against agencies is not a competition. Admin walks through the paperwork.
The rule exists because somebody asked the question in a cycle where the answer was not written down. It is written down now, and it is applied the same way to every entry in the group.
On what changes for an entrant
Nothing, if the paperwork matches the declaration. Everything, if it does not - which is why the check happens before a juror reads anything rather than after.
